Eidolon

Warning (PG16)

This episode contains adult themes. Reader discretion recommended.

The day unfolded in a blur of corpo gloss. Boardrooms filled with men in black suits who spoke in neat phrases about market share and user capacities, but whose eyes inevitably strayed to Rei whenever Takumi motioned for her to pour coffee or stand at his shoulder like a living trophy. Investors tried to mask their hunger with polite smiles, but Takumi could see the twitch of a hand on a pen, the subtle tightening of jaws.

Rei endured it flawlessly, her poise impeccable: every bow timed, every smile measured, her calm presence soaking up the unspoken weight of the room like solar cells swallowing light. Not once did her equanimity crack, though Takumi’s sharp eyes lingered often enough to notice the faint heat along her neck when too many eyes pressed against her at once. Her execution should have pleased him. It did, on the surface. Rei performed exactly as he needed; the living proof that Eidolon was not just fantasy, but aspiration. But beneath the veneer, Takumi felt something else stir.

He kept his arms folded, his notes crisp on the data slate before him, his tone cold and commanding in the meetings. But every time Rei adjusted the fall of her dress, every time her voice dropped smoothly as she answered a polite question about her role, Takumi’s thoughts betrayed him.

She wasn’t just data, wasn’t just an asset, wasn’t even just the perfect face for his project, she was a temptation, close beside him in lilac silk. He stole a glance at her from the corner of his vision, letting no one notice. She smiled vaguely at nothing in particular, her calm mask unshakable. Takumi straightened his tie, his grey eyes returning to the numbers.

Takumi forced the thoughts down, carving it away with the blade of his discipline. Attraction was biased, bias weakened judgment. Desire had ruined better men than him and had cost empires their crowns. He would not be another fool undone by longing. And yet, when Rei leaned forward to pour another round of coffee for a smirking shareholder peaking down her cleavage, Takumi’s hand twitched against the table, stopping himself just short of betraying anything. His jaw clenched, and he redirected the room’s attention back to him with the sharp crack of a data point projected into the air.

At the end of the day, most of the investors had finally left, their laughter echoing down the corridor long after their tailored suits vanished into elevators. Rei let her shoulders relax, just a fraction, but Takumi’s grey eyes reminded her to stay poised until the last possible second.

Once the room and hallway were cleared, a different sort of presence entered: a tall, narrow-framed man in his late thirties with hair that looked like it had been hastily combed with his own fingers. His suit was wrinkled, his tie crooked. Rei recognized him as Doctor Kaoru Sato, the scientist who had taken her initial scans for the project. Back when she didn’t know the full extent to which she would be included in the code. Kaoru clutched a stack of data slates against his chest.

“Rei-san,” he blurted before even acknowledging Takumi, “Do you—eh—have a moment?” Takumi’s eyes narrowed, but he waved an impatient hand, “Make it quick, Sato.” Rei had heard Kaoru whispered about in hallways, spoken with a mixture of awe and irritation. The lead architect of Eidolon’s behavioral simulation. A genius, they said, but with the social grace of an unplugged toaster.

Kaoru shuffled closer, flipping through his slates, “It’s about the biometric streams, the ones the Bicoca captured yesterday. The… eh… quietness of them. The absence of spikes is fascinating, don’t misunderstand, but I wanted to ask—”, he looked up at her with wide, blinking eyes, “When you were with Mr. Kelly, were you genuinely calm? Or did you simply suppress the indicators?”

Rei tilted her head, the corners of her lips quaking faintly, “Are you asking if I lied to your sensors?” Takumi looked up from behind his slate. “Yes. Well, no. Well—”, Kauro was moving his head around intensely, flipped hair over and away from his eyes in the process, “We can model arousal, fear, compliance, rebellion… but what’s still missing is—eh—subjectivity. The inner narrative that drives the response. The soul, if you like.” His hands trembled as he scrolled through a chaotic mess of code on one slate, “If you felt something you didn’t show, it’s valuable data. More valuable than the surface-level metrics.”

Takumi cut in coldly, “Kaoru, make it short, she is on a schedule and not your guinea pig for qualitative research.” Rei shot Takumi a brief glare, mumbling guinea pig under her breath. Takumi lifted a single eyebrow at her in response. Kaoru flinched, but pressed on, his awkward brilliance overriding fear, “But she is the variable. Eidolon isn’t just about body heat or heart rate – that’s easy. What we’re trying to capture is why desire happens. Why some touches feel electric and others fall flat. Why people choose who they choose. That’s not science yet, that’s… still chaos.” His expression was sharp despite the nervousness. He turned to Rei again, “You… eh… you might be the only one who can help me map the chaos of the current data.”

For the first time, Rei saw the project not as Takumi’s cruel fantasy machine, but as a sprawling creation of many hands, technicians, coders, researchers, all trying to bottle the essence of humanity. And now one of them, strange and clumsy as he was, was looking to her not as an asset, not as a doll, but as key to solving the puzzle. 

Rei smiled softly, “Then maybe you should be asking me about feelings, not graphs.” Kaoru blinked, stunned, before scrawling something furiously into his slate. Takumi’s cold voice broke the moment like glass, “Enough.” He stood, adjusting his cufflinks, “She’s not scheduled to educate you on feelings. Just use the data for now.” Kaoru bowed quickly, shuffling out, but not before casting Rei one last look, equal parts curiosity and amazement.

The door hissed shut behind Dr. Sato, swallowing his awkward shuffle. The silence in Takumi’s office was charged with the remnants of the scientist’s chaotic energy. Rei turned slowly, her lilac dress whispering against her thighs. She bowed, a respectful dip of her head, but when she straightened, her gaze was direct.

“You were too hard on him,” she said, her voice soft but unwavering, “I didn’t mind answering his questions. Didn’t you say my intentions, my… qualitative experiences were the valuable part?”

Takumi didn’t look up from his data slate, his fingers tapping a final notation. The crisp sound echoed in the spacious room. He set the slate down with deliberate care, then finally lifted his eyes. They weren’t flashing with the cold fury she sometimes provoked. Instead, they held a different intensity, more personal, more simmering. He walked around his desk, his movements unhurried, the aura around him shifting from corporate command to something more intimate and daunting.

He stopped a few paces from her, close enough that she could see the faint, tired lines at the corners of his eyes, the subtle tension in his jaw. He let the silence stretch, making her wait for his answer.

“Your thoughts are valuable. Relevant,” he conceded, his voice a low murmur, “Kaoru’s research is… essential. But even geniuses must learn to respect authority, to have patience – and better timing.” His grey eyes locked onto hers, a faint, knowing curve touching his lips, “Especially when I have other plans for us this evening.”

Rei’s breath hitched, a mix of curiosity and caution tightening her spine. She tilted her head, the biometric jewelry at her throat catching the light, “Plans?” A low chuckle escaped him, a rare, unguarded sound that did nothing to ease her wariness, “Don’t look so suspicious. Consider it a gift of sorts.” He gestured for her to follow as he moved toward his private elevator, “A dinner reservation made several months ago. It would be a shame to waste it, even if your recent… performance… has been less than inspiring.”

He ushered her into the polished brass elevator. The doors closed, sealing them in a capsule of quiet reflection. As they began their smooth descent, Rei’s mind raced. A dinner? With Takumi, outside the controlled environments of the penthouse or corporate functions?

“It’s not just any restaurant,” Takumi said, as if reading the whirl of her thoughts. He studied her profile, his gaze tracing the line of her neck, the slight part of her lips as she stared ahead, “A legendary one. I recall you mentioning it once in passing.”

A spark, faint but undeniable, flickered in Rei’s chest. Her mother’s voice, warm with wistful longing, echoed in her memory. The tomatoes, Rei-chan, they say they taste like the sun in Campania. The mozzarella is made from the milk of buffaloes they keep under artificial dawn. She’d thought it a fairy tale. Her eyes widened slightly before she could school her feature, “It couldn’t be… Vetro e Vite?”

The corner of Takumi’s mouth twitched in clear satisfaction. He gave a single, slight nod, “The very same. The one with the fabricated Italian countryside on the seventy-second floor. I’m told the simulation of a Tuscan twilight is… convincing.”

Rei’s gasp was soft, involuntary. The cool composure she’d maintained all day cracked, revealing a flash of pure, unguarded wonder. She saw it register in his eyes, a victory for him, but one that felt strangely mutual in this moment. After quickly smoothing her expression, she lifted her chin in a show of regained control, “I’ve heard it’s mythical, I hope it lives up to the lore.” Takumi’s chuckle was richer this time, a genuine sound of amusement. “Mythical,” he echoed, the word tasting like a private joke between them.

The elevator doors opened directly into the executive garage, where the sleek, black car waited, its engine a silent hum. Yamamoto, the towering guard from the favor choice interview, stood by the rear door, his posture perfect. Rei realised with a chill that he had always been part of Takumi’s private security detail. Yamamoto’s austere eyes meet Rei’s for a brief, unreadable moment before opening the door. The ghost of the kiss during her choice the other day hung between them, unspoken but palpable.

Takumi guided her in with a hand at the small of her back, a proprietary gesture that made her skin prickle. He slid in beside her, the space in the car instantly shrinking with his presence. As Yamamoto took the driver’s seat and the vehicle glided soundlessly into the neon-drenched canyon of the city, Rei found herself staring out at the rain-slicked towers.

The initial shock had worn off, replaced by a tangled knot of emotions. This was a manipulation, of course. A reward dangled to ensure future compliance and a reminder of the exquisite world he could provide. Yet, the little girl who had listened to her mother’s dreams couldn’t be entirely silenced.

As they merged into the glittering river of traffic heading toward the financial district’s soaring plazas, she turned her head slightly toward him. The city lights played across his sharp, impassive features.

“Thank you, Takumi,” she said, her voice quieter than she intended. The formal ‘-sama’ was conspicuously absent. She was speaking to the man who knew her secret longing, not just the executive, “I… have always dreamed of dining there.”

He didn’t look at her, his own gaze fixed on the soaring spires that housed restaurants like clouds. But he gave another slight, acknowledging nod. The only sound was the whisper of the tires on wet asphalt and the faint, constant hum of the jewelry against her skin, recording the quickened pulse of anticipation, the fragile warmth of a granted wish, and the deep, chilling awareness of the price that would inevitably be attached.